Other people have said most things. HOWEVER, my concern would be the fact that you have bred together two banded hamsters. If you had done any reading about breeding, you would know that it is potentially dangerous to breed two patterned hamsters. There is a fair chance that they will carry the Wh gene. Any babies they have which inherit this gene from both parents will be anopthalmic (eyeless) white babies.

Please be prepared if she is pregnant that there may be eyeless whites in the litter. These will not be able to be rehomed as pets, you will need to care for them singly and meet their additional needs.

If she is NOT pregnant, please do not breed her to this same male unless you have a FULL pedigree and know their exact genetics so you can judge whether they are Wh carriers.

(10-14-2010 02:56 PM)furrypolka Wrote: Other people have said most things. HOWEVER, my concern would be the fact that you have bred together two banded hamsters. If you had done any reading about breeding, you would know that it is potentially dangerous to breed two patterned hamsters. There is a fair chance that they will carry the Wh gene. Any babies they have which inherit this gene from both parents will be anopthalmic (eyeless) white babies.

Please be prepared if she is pregnant that there may be eyeless whites in the litter. These will not be able to be rehomed as pets, you will need to care for them singly and meet their additional needs.

If she is NOT pregnant, please do not breed her to this same male unless you have a FULL pedigree and know their exact genetics so you can judge whether they are Wh carriers.

im going to sound like a broken record in the way of breeding, but do you know the genetics of these hamsters? breeding unknown animals is very risky, its also very expensive and there is no money to be made in it.

please have a look at this topic here to see some of the result from genetically unknown matings

you have also bred her very young, so if she is pregnant there could be tragic consiquences

hope everything works out well for mum and any pups, both parents are very cute

i have spoken tothe breeder and told me everything about them
i aint doing it for the money i doing it cuz i reckon they are so cute and they deserve to have off spring to pluss i didnt want breed her till 5 month its just mum cleaned them out and put them both in bath together thinking there both girls :/ i told her after you shouldnt put them together ever they dont get on they are ansocial to each other

and thank you so much all i can do is hope and pray
omg just watched them vids and read them stories and braught me to tears

erm i have just thought, i know i have to give mercedes bred dipped in milk, cheese and boild egg. But how frequent do i have to give them to her i dont want to give her too little or too much

thank you for all your help so far i much appriciate it
my mum rang a vet today and put me on i asked them about the 2 banded hamsters going together what are the chances of the mother having eyeless white babies, she said "well i been working here now a good 20 years and i only ever knowen that happen once and i deal with this all the time dont worry about it she is quite young but she should be fine with high quality hamster food and peace and quiet.

so i reckon she will be fine and thats a vet saying it, i aint getting my hopes up but she should be fine.

With all due respect, vets are not hamster breeders. She may not have seen them, as perhaps the people who come to her are too sensible to have bred without research, or just lucky. If both hamsters carry the Wh gene, then statistically a quarter of the babies will be eyeless whites. You just have to hope that yours don't, but you have no way of really knowing that. It was a bad pairing to risk for a novice breeder. Let's hope you are lucky too.

Breeding because "they are cute" really isn't a good reason, to be honest with you, and I'm not sure why you feel that they "deserve" to have offspring - they don't care if they do or not, and having babies actually really takes it out of a female and should never be done lightly as you can see from Lil Miss' thread.

Anyway, it's done now, and she should be getting a small amount of extras on a daily basis. Ours have porridge, chicken baby food, scrambled egg, Farleys rusks and plain cooked chicken.

(Sorry Sam, I didn't read the other thread until after I had posted here!)

No probs, FP
I have to echo what has been said above, a vet is not a hamster breeder.
There is no definitive way to tell if a hamster carries wh gene or not which is way it should be played safe and a patterned hamster should only be mated to a solid colour with a novice breeder and when you are talking about hamsters with lack of genetic history.

I have to say that I hear it too often, people saying they bred their hamsters because 'they wanted cute little babies' this is NOT a reason to breed.

Also, am a little confused... you said you wanted to breed but not until your girl was older and then your mum put them together thinking they were both girls??

You seem to be changing your story a lot.
1) Your mum thought they were girls and let them play together
2) You were going to breed her but not until she was older
Quote 'i aint doing it for the money i doing it cuz i reckon they are so cute and they deserve to have off spring to pluss i didnt want breed her till 5 month'
And now you are saying you weren't going to breed till you were 16? I think you need to get your story straight!

the fact that your mum thought they were both girls is worrying if your mum thought both were girls how can she have any idea you were planning on breeding?
at only 15 and still living at home you should have talked to your mum first as you are likely to need her financial backing